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WikiProject Alternate History

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edit · history · watch · refresh

To-do list for Alternate history:

Find more sources for the article.
Cleanup the "External Links" section, there is way to many links there and they need to be limited to notable sites.
Copyedit/proofread article to meet Manual of Style.
See if "Points of divergence", "Counterfactual history", and "Sidewise Award for Alternate History", should have their own sections or be worked into "See Also"
"Elements of alternate history" and "Development of more sophisticated framings" needs sources.
~~Add a Comics sub-section in "Alternate history in other media." See What If (comics), Elseworlds, and List of alternate history fiction#Comics for ideas.~~

Please add more items if you think they need addressing.

[edit] Improper use of acronyms?

Towards the end of the article I started noticing the acronym POD being used a lot. I'm assuming that is supposed to be Point of Divergence? It took me a while to figure that out and I'm sure I can't be the only one confused by the way the acronym was used in the article. Perhaps someone can clean this up a bit? I prefer not to edit Wikipedia myself since it almost always ends up in a revert\edit war these days... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.113.153.34 (talk) 04:04, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why was the link to different World's removed?

Different worlds is the new dicussion page for what was Othertimelines, formerly the second most active AH dicussion board on the net. Why was the link to different worlds removed again? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.89.105.188 (talk) 01:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The link disappeared on 23rd September. I tried replacing it and was blocked from doing so because the domain z11.invisionfree.com is on a spam blacklist. See here and here. Akiyama 01:41, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, my requests to have either Invision boards in general, or this forum in particular, removed from the spam blacklist, were in vain. They were ignored and deleted. If anyone wants to track down this elusive, but active, discussion board, I suggest typing "invision" and "different_worlds" (note the underline!) into Google and proceeding from there! Akiyama (talk) 00:15, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Can anyone please tell me why the site is on the spamlist? I go there myself and can assure you its not spam. (MorphyVSFischer (talk) 03:06, 29 June 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Comics and graphic novels

I have added the following subhead to Alternate history in other media with the following information (actually, slightly less info than there is in the following paragraph) as an initial paragraph. Feel free to expand on it with any info you may have…

In comics and graphic novels: In the graphic novel series General Leonardo (three albums planned; In the Service of the Vatican and Crusade To the Holy Land published so far), Erik Svane and Dan Greenberg have the upper echelons of the Vatican forcing Leonardo da Vinci to build avant-garde military inventions (the tank, the hangglider, etc) in around 1480 in order to create an invincible army to embark upon a new Crusade to invade the Holy Land and reconquer Jerusalem. Asteriks 10:25, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I am unsure of the inclusion of Elseworlds and What If? (comics) in this section as they ask "what ifs" based on the fictional universes. Titles like The Nail asks what the DC Universe would be like without Superman and few if any have any actual real world historical setting. Red Son deals with Superman landing in Russia not American, the Annihilation What If? deals with the question of how Earth's superheroes would cope if the Annihilation Wave wasn't stopped in deep space as it was in the main series (which is really an alternative "present" set in a fictional universe). Unlike Watchmen there is no explanation of justification of how they fit into the general definition. There are good examples as mentioned (Ministry of Space, Captain Confederacy) but I'm pretty familiar with the Elseworlds and What if imprints and can't see how they fit. (Emperor (talk) 20:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC))

Will the person or persons who wrote this long entry please buy a dictionary and check the difference between 'alternate' and 'alternative'? These histories can only be 'alternative', sionce they replace other possible histories. 'Alternate' is used of two things that succeed one another in turns. It cannot be used of histories of any kind.Denis MacEoin 23:16, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Alternate, adj. - 11. constituting an alternative. Also, this isn't important, but I pronounce the word when used with your definition as "all-ter-nate" (with a long A), whereas the definition I put would be pronounced by me as "all-ter-net" (with a short A). I'm not sure this is even correct (my accent is General American). No, wait, that first pronounciation is for the verb. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 18:13, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation, with only one O. 58.111.81.107 (talk) 12:27, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, there is a dictionary reference for Alternate History...from the Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction.Shsilver (talk) 18:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but these are all based on original misuses of the word.

Please see the following: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alternate

3. (US) Other — as a common misuse when meaning alternative.

Also:

The two words really do have quite separate and distinct meanings: alternate implies the taking of turns, and alternative implies a choice. Start with the verb “to alternate” and carry its meaning over to the adjective alternate. You have a useful modifier that says, in a word, “First this one, then that one,” or, “Now me, then you, then me again, and so on.” Don’t corrupt alternate with any other confusing meaning.

Then take alternative, which means the choosing of one out of two courses; as a noun, it means such a choice (or “option”), and as an adjective, it is a synonym for “substitute”. Limit it to that. Let’s not blow alternately hot and cold on this: the alternative to holding the line is fuzziness.

—William Safire, On Language

Insisting on usage resulting from error is bad form an encyclopedia. Turkeyphan^t 19:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Getting back on topic: Alien Space Bats. They are a plot device used with alternate history, like a Point of divergence or an Assiti Shards effect. Essentially some fantastical thing usually caused by aliens, God(s), magic, or something similar caused history to go off in another direction. It also has been used to describe alternate histories that are implausible. I believe in Dies the Fire, Stirling attributed the creation of the phrase to someone named Alison Brooks. Is that enough to get its own mention? Zombie Hunter Smurf (talk) 13:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How long is too long?

I just shortened the page a little. It is currently 50 kilobytes. Is that too long? Akiyama (talk) 00:18, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Seems OK to me. Recommend removing the tag. Still could use more documentation. Pete Tillman (talk) 02:57, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is much too long for me. The main problem is that the discussion of alternate histories in literature is unfocused and excessive. It seems to go all over the place, but misses important points (eg there is a reference early in the piece that talks about the "first work in English" that looks like it needs linking to an earlier French tradition(?). If I had time I would completely rewrite the whole of this section to give it either a chronological or thematic development, rather than seeming to throw bits in all over the place. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.73.47.138 (talk) 07:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fictional or not fictional

I am in a minor content debate about whether you can call a character from an alternate history story a "fictional character" or not. The character is based on someone real (actually it is based on someone mentioned in the Bible... but let us assume that the Bible is talking about a real person) ... The names are similar but not identical, and the events of the story are not the same as those in real life (or more accurately, not the same as the events mentioned in the Bible). Is it fair to say that the character, as portrayed in the alternate history story, is fictional?

If so, do we need to verify the statement "X is a fictional character"? Another editor is requesting verification... I don't think you do (after all, we don't bother to cite the fact that Harry Potter is fictional in the article on Harry Potter). Blueboar (talk) 00:02, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I would say that the word "fictional" in the context you are debating is superfluous and remove it entirely.Shsilver (talk) 01:35, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deleting sentence on Ray Bradbury's A SOUND OF THUNDER

The statement, "Ray Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder creates a scenario in which the time travelers inadvertently destroy all history as we know it." is singularly innaccurate.

The short story (not the film) ends with only one discernible overt change in the present due to the time-travellers' actions in the past. That change is that on their return from the past, the time-travellers find that the loser in the recent presidential election (a "strong man" candidate) is now the winner. The "destroy all history as we know it" change occurs in the (bad) movie adaptation.JTGILLICK (talk) 22:40, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject: Alternate History?

If I were to make such a Wikiproject, would anyone be interested? Zombie Hunter Smurf (talk) 19:57, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Antiquity

Thank you for the second citation. OR policies require that any analysis of published sources must also be referenced (i.e. simply citing Livy himself is not sufficient to demonstrate that this qualifies as "alternate history") - the new citation seems to satisfy this. Brando130 (talk) 02:49, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Italian websites?

Maybe I'm just being weird, but why should their be links to Italian websites on the English wikipedia? Zombie Hunter Smurf (talk) 15:08, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:How Few Remain Front Cover.jpg

The image Image:How Few Remain Front Cover.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
That this article is linked to from the image description page.

The following images also have this problem:

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --16:30, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] removed section

I removed this section from the article

The Medieval scholar Gershonides perceived free will as meaning that "God knows beforehand all the choices open to each individual. God does not know, however, which choice the individual, in his freedom, will make." In effect, God in this view perceives a multitude of alternate timelines, with each crucial decision taken by a person creating two or more new timelines branching off from each other - similar to the universe postulated by modern writers of alternate history ^[1].

Though sourced, I'm not sure whether the author of the book meant it in the way it was written on this article or else it was interpreted that way by the editor. Zombie Hunter Smurf (talk) 00:45, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "The boundaries of alternate history"

I'll admit that I'm not an expert on the alternative history genre, but this section strikes me as a bit excessive.

Do we really need to devote so many words to explaining that stories that were set in the present or future when they were written don't count as alternative history even if the date they were set is now in the past? (I would have thought it would be fairly straight-forward difference, and could be expressed in one sentence, as I just have).

As for invasion literature - I don't see why this would count as alternative history, unless the story in question actually involves events occurring ahistorically as an explanation for the invasion.

In fact, just reading the section again, it seems to contain very few citations, and a lot of "One could define..." type statements, which to me makes it look like OR and/or not NPOV. Wardog (talk) 13:32, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Your probably right, looking at it more closely it does seem more like OR. Most of the links can be removed to the See Also section. Zombie Hunter Smurf (talk) 13:43, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

You're 58.111.81.107 (talk) 12:33, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] why some novels and not others?

I am a little puzzled why some alternate history novels by major sci-fi writers don't get mentioned while others do. In particular, LeGuin's LATHE OF HEAVEN and Gibson & Sterling's THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE are missing, and I think both are lot more interesting than still another "Germany wins WW2" novel. (Personal opinion, of course) CharlesTheBold (talk) 03:11, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Well for starters, The Lathe of Heaven is not alternate history. Otherwise, it is a matter of what editors have decided to note. Shsilver (talk) 12:36, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the biggest problem with the article is that it has become an excessive list of alternate history fiction combined with unecessary plot. Most of the works listed lack examples to show why they are important to the genre as a whole. I've been working on and off on what I think IMHO is a better version, its unfinished though as you will see. Please everyone check it out and feel free to edit it. Zombie Hunter Smurf (talk) 21:57, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

"Not alternate history"? This raises the question of whether the formal definition of alternative history (as used in this article) absolutely requires a clear point of divergence in a timeline, or whether changing a single sociological condition to create an alternate history is sufficient. "Lathe of Heaven" most certainly does create alternate histories, many of them, but they are not triggered by the usual decision points. Instead, something like skin colour is changed and the results examined, repeatedly. Not all that different from "Sliders" in that sense - and "Sliders" was included in the article. - Tenebris —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.112.29.248 (talk) 05:15, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction

Introduction needs refixing - the term allohistory is introduced and defined twice. Quite excessive. Yili2943 (talk) 13:25, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Done. You could have done it yourself. Shsilver (talk) 17:27, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

The description of the French word uchronie would seem to be problematic in my opinion. It is likened in etymology to the word utopia in the entry, but UTOPIA is commonly thought to be derived from the Greek eu (good), not u or ou (not), as stated in the entry. I think this could be rectified by referencing the Greek u directly, and dropping the reference to utopia. B. Polhemus (talk) 21:27, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

The prefix allo- is from Greek allos, “different, other” —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.184.159.199 (talk) 15:15, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

"Another occasionally-used term for the genre is "allohistory" (lit. "other history")" The prefix allo- is from Greek allos, “different, other” and history is from the Greek historeō (actually ἱστορέω) Basically I'm unclear on what the abbreviation lit. means, and whether it would be worthwhile to have more of an etymology of the word. Tumacama (talk) 15:28, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amywill5918 (talk • contribs) 01:20, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Frequency as an example of alternate worlds

Not alternate worlds exactly, main character somehow communicates with father across time and changes history - and thus, his present - all in the same world.

I really liked this article, well written, detailed and informative! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amywill5918 (talk • contribs) 01:25, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

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